Devil's Double premieres in London

Starring Dominic Cooper in a dual lead, the chilling adaptation of the decadent life of Saddam Hussein's eldest son, Uday, and his body double, Latif Yahia, premieres in London.

11:15AM BST 02 Aug 2011

Based on Latif Yahia's book of the same name, The Devil's Double takes a plunge into the lawless playground of excess and violence known as Baghdad in 1987.

Yahia, who visibly still carries the physical scars of his ordeal that ended in 1991, said that he lost his identity completely during that period, even to the point that a death certificate was issued in his birth name. He has spent years trying to rediscover himself.

"It took five years between psychology doctors and counselling, and the scar, you carry it with you your whole life," Yahia said.

Dominic Cooper who plays Yahia/Uday said the story was shocking to him and it was difficult to understand the mindset behind the regime and those who were forced to live it.

"We haven't been exposed to that horror, to those tyrants, that world. It's really very removed from our ideas. To physically be able to harm another human being in that way is staggering and really, really hard to just even believe, and that's why it's amazing even just talking to Latif and seeing the mental and physical wounds that, that man has, it all stays with me," Cooper said.

"It's kind of just beyond anything I can comprehend. But I remember the images and I remember Lee's [Tamahori, director] determination to make it that violent, so that we... I think you need, you need to realise that did happen. We in a way dumbed it down. It's not violence for violence's sake. That is what they were like," he added.

The Devil's Double opens in UK cinemas on August 10, and is currently showing in US theatres.